Heyyy! Welcome to my first official blog post! I’m Chelsea and I’m incredibly excited to be going on the World Race Gap Year 2019! If you’d like to really get to know me go check out my About Me section!
For my first blog post, I wanted to let you in on how I even got here and what lead up to me deciding to take a gap year.
College. As I was entering my senior (and even junior) year of high school, the topic of college was on every student and teachers mind. It’s all anyone asked me about.
“What will you study?”
“What school are you going to?”
“What career are planning on going into?”
I even had some friends already apply to schools. All of this, honestly, made me feel really overwhelmed. It felt like everyone had it all figured out and knew exactly where they were going and I didn’t. I knew I was going to go to college one day, but for now, it doesn’t feel right.
I moved to America (specifically New Jersey) from Australia with my family when I was 7-years-old. We moved there because my dad got a job at a church as a pastor. When I was 12 we moved to Georgia because he got a job at North Point Ministries. Later, my mum got a job with North Point working for their missions organization global(x). I’ve basically grown up in church and that’s had a big impact on me. I’ve felt for a while that my calling, and future career, is in ministry. But I’m not too sure where in ministry I want to go. Do I want to be a worship leader? Maybe work in student environments, and if so is there a certain age group I want to work with? Maybe I want to be like my mum and work in missions. I’m not really sure.
Because my mum’s job is sending people on mission trips all over the world, she found out about the gap year program with the World Race. She told me as much as she knew about it and I loved the idea of traveling for nine months helping people in communities all around the world. I saw it as an opportunity to take a year to figure out exactly what I want to do, while also exploring my faith and everything God can do. I can take this year off school to really listen to God without the distractions we get in the first world. I can build houses, teach English, and share my faith instead of spending the whole day distracted by my phone or what’s on TV that night. Although I will miss Harry Potter movies and watching ‘Survivor’ with my parents.
So, after a couple months of thinking about whether or not to apply, I finally did. When I found out I had been accepted, I instantly started to cry tears of joy and run around the house telling my family, as well as calling my mentors to tell them the amazing news. I’m so excited to get my hands dirty and witness the amazing things God is going to do through me and my amazing squad mates.
I’m going to be living out of my comfort zone for nine months. Sleeping in a tent, living out of a backpack, having a hole in the ground as a bathroom, and not being around my family and support system is going to be hard, but I’m so ready for this new chapter of my life!
I’m excited to share everything about this new chapter here as well! Stay tuned and subscribe for updates on my journey and I would love for you to be part of my team by praying for me (health, safety – all the parent things 🙂 and if you want to help me reach my financial goal, that would be so humbling and I thank you in advance.
See you soon!
– Chelsea
